


her heart beats in time with the drums of war

by andthentheybow



Series: of false gods and fake kings and everything in between [6]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Minecraft IRL, Niki-centric, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: she is not a hero. she is not a president, a general, a queen. she is a baker. her kingdom is the kitchen and her apron is her cape. the people she governs are the same ones that she sees day in and day out, the ones that she feeds and bandages and cares for. her heart beats for them, badum, badum, and she pours her love into the food she makes.sometimes it isn’t enough.
Relationships: Eret & Niki | Nihachu, Eret & Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu, Jschlatt & Niki | Nihachu, Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot
Series: of false gods and fake kings and everything in between [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001208
Comments: 33
Kudos: 181





	her heart beats in time with the drums of war

**Author's Note:**

> don't be creepy about content creators, these are my interpretations of their personas, if they're uncomfortable this will be deleted, etc etc

she is two sides of the same coin, the distinct balance necessary in the world she finds herself in. she is order and chaos, healing and harming, baking and burning. her eyes burn with passion no matter what she does. her heart beats in time with the drums of war, badum, badum, louder and louder until she is afraid her own heartbeat will overwhelm her.

it never does.

l’manberg does not have war drums. it has a guitar played in the streets and songs that fall like raindrops from the lips of its strongest defenders. it has songs that are peaceful, sung from a stage when the sun shines bright. it has songs that are violent, when half the people scream in the street and the other half scream back. it has songs that just are, that are allowed to just be, songs that echo in the halls of the white house as the president and his cabinet stumble around in a haze induced by the lack of sleep. it does not have war drums.

l’manberg’s war drums are the heartbeats of its people. they march to war with nothing but the blood pulsing through their veins and their belief in each other. and when they are gone, when l’manberg becomes manberg, when the heartbeats of those trapped in the white house slow down to the point that they’re barely discernable, her heart keeps beating.

*\\*/*

she is not a hero. she is not a president, a general, a queen. she is a baker. her kingdom is the kitchen and her apron is her cape. the people she governs are the same ones that she sees day in and day out, the ones that she feeds and bandages and cares for. her heart beats for them, badum, badum, and she pours her love into the food she makes.

sometimes her food isn’t enough. sometimes she needs to be more than a baker. sometimes she needs to be a sister, holding tubbo and eret against her tightly in the cold halls of eret’s castle. sometimes she needs to be a healer, carefully wiping the blood off tommy’s injuries and securing the bandage around wilbur’s wounds. sometimes she needs to be a fighter, screaming at fundy as her flag burns and schlatt as her taxes are raised.

every role she takes, she pours her heart into. she has no other choice. the war drums beat louder, louder, telling her that her job is never finished. someday their country will be returned to them, but the struggle will be long and hard. her boys will rest, but she will not. food is always needed. healing is always needed. a sister’s love is always needed.

and as much as she hates to admit it, fighting is always needed, too. if they stopped fighting, at any point, then it would all be for nothing.

so they do not stop fighting. they never do.

*\\*/*

she arrives in dream’s world shortly after the stream of letters from wilbur changes in tone, talking about a successful end to their revolution. tommy and wilbur are both at spawn when she arrives, talking over each other. the bags under their eyes are heavy and she resolves to fix this as soon as possible.

she isn’t surprised with what she finds in l’manberg. they have just left a period of war; of course that is what the new country is set up to do. the first thing she does is make sure the kids (tommy, tubbo, fundy) know damn well to come to her if they need it. tommy scoffs that he’s a big man. tubbo takes her up on that offer later in the afternoon.

the second thing she does is start building her bakery. there aren’t hardly enough shops, and there’s certainly no good sources of food. she goes around and asks what people like, sweets being the overwhelming consensus with one very passionate request from tommy to have nothing potato-related. no one here knows how to bake and she’s got a recipe book full of cakes and cookies, so she figures she’s set on that front.

the third thing she does is seek out eret. she knows everything about them, of course, she knows about all of them. while she’s not eager to seek out any members of dream’s crew, she wants to talk with eret, simply because of how wilbur switched from praising them to calling them a murderous traitor in a matter of a few letters. she’d like to make an opinion for herself.

and she finds that she really, really likes eret’s company. they have picnics and sometimes tubbo joins them, and the three establish a very sibling-like bond. she understands eret, in a way- they got confused. she can see the regret hidden in their gaze behind their sunglasses, and they are never anything but kind to her and tubbo. she knows wilbur and tommy will likely never forgive them, and she respects them for that. but she was not brought here to be wilbur’s blind follower. she makes her own opinions, and she knows wilbur respects her for this.

*\\*/*

she knows they all respect a lot of things about her. these dirty crime boys, as they call themselves, are so unused to having a presence like her around that it’s almost astonishing. she is so like them and unlike them at the same time that it even amazes her, on occasion. she does not care about the past, she cares about the future. she knows that anyone could betray her at any given moment, and instead of guarding her trust like they all do, she gives it freely. she clutches a sword just as tightly as she clutches a rolling pin, she makes comments sometimes that have them all stop dead, and she does not let anyone walk over her.

she does let them latch onto her, though. she has bandages and cookies and warm smiles, a sister-like figure that makes sure they are not just taken care of, they are loved. she knows that tubbo and eret view her as a long-lost sister, that tommy pretends he’s above it all but accidentally calls her ‘mum’ once and vehemently denies it, that wilbur thinks of her as his best friend and allows himself to be soft around her like he doesn’t around anyone else.

fundy is more of a mystery.

*\\*/*

she doesn’t know why fundy latches onto her like he does. she’s heard a lot about wilbur’s son through letters, and while others choose to ignore wilbur’s drunken ramblings about salmon, she presses further. wilbur tells her the truth; he found fundy as a scared kid just outside l’manberg’s borders, and he took him in. fundy was raised in a time of war, with no comforting presence, only wilbur and battle plans and so much blood and death.

so maybe she does know why. maybe because fundy doesn’t have a mother, or a sister, or a best friend that’s consistently around. either way, she becomes best friends with him faster than anything. he helps her build her bakery and she makes him cookies and listens to him ramble about anything and everything.

a lot of the time, he rambles about wilbur. about how wilbur’s always been an absent father, always giving any extra attention to tommy. how wilbur doesn’t trust him with anything, not even a position in the newly formed government. after quackity announces his candidacy, fundy says he wants to run against wilbur, and he asks her to be his running mate.

she should’ve seen it coming from miles away, the l’manberg vote being split and schlatt rising to the top. but all she was thinking about in the moment was supporting her friend, and maybe she was a little upset with wilbur, too, because she’s had both tubbo and fundy in her arms in the dead of night wondering why they could never be good enough for their general, and maybe she wants to show him that his actions have consequences.

her actions have consequences, too. she knows this. it doesn’t hurt any less when she watches fundy burn her flag down, manic glint in his eyes. he turns back and she can see nothing but fire, she almost doesn’t recognize the man she sees. eret keeps her from running directly into the blaze, and she screams. she screams because she knows there is no going back, not now, not anymore.

she doesn’t blame him for doing it. she knows the flag symbolizes the old l’manberg, a l’manberg where fundy was never good enough for his father. but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

she spends the night at eret’s castle, and he rubs her back as she sobs, and eventually tubbo sneaks in with his suit rumpled and his tie missing and she just cries harder, because ender, they’re really fucked up, aren’t they?

*\\*/*

that’s what she’s thinking as she slaves away in the bakery she carved out of stone in pogtopia. they’d been eating nothing but potatoes for weeks before she got here, which was unacceptable, no wonder tommy was looking so thin. he’s looking a little better now, but she can still see the bags under his eyes, and she has to remind herself that he’s the youngest out of all of them.

tubbo and quackity both flinch at loud noises and sudden movements. techno isn’t even around half the time. wilbur... she doesn’t know what’s happening with wilbur. eret starts coming around and wilbur doesn’t even seem to notice. fundy shows up, on their side the whole time, and wilbur hardly cares.

she forces tommy and tubbo and quackity to rest. she glares at techno the rare times he’s there until he reluctantly sleeps. she includes eret in the planning. she hugs fundy as tightly as she can and reads every word he wrote and nearly breaks down crying because she’s so happy to have her best friend back.

tommy tells her about wilbur’s dramatic villain monologue, that’s what he calls it, about tnt and destroying a nation and being the bad guys. she has half a mind to slap the shit out of him, but she doesn’t, wasn’t she going to do the same? wasn’t she planning on the lacing the city streets with tnt and blowing it all to hell, just to remind schlatt that the people gave him his power and the people would take it away?

she seeks wilbur out and he tells her the same things, about how if he cannot have l’manberg then no one can. she can see the terror hidden in his gaze, the fear that he’s stamping down with insanity, and she doesn’t raise her voice at him like everyone else has done. she offers him her hand and lets him sob into her shoulder and it's the most lucid, the most him, that he’s sounded since she got here. later, she sees the tears in his eyes replaced by fire, and she knows he’s going to blow it up no matter what.

*\\*/*

there is a very different kind of fire burning in schlatt’s eyes. he is standing in her bakery, quackity and tubbo behind him, telling her that he’s raising her taxes and her taxes only. eret holds her back, keeps her from lunging at the president and clawing his eyes out. he gives her a toothy grin and she tells him she hopes that he starves.

there is a very different kind of fire burning in schlatt’s eyes. he is standing outside her prison cell, quackity and tubbo behind him, telling her that if she doesn’t pay her taxes he’s going to keep her here. she is bloody and bruised from when he took her down, because she did not allow herself to be arrested without a fight. but she can see the concern and fear in tubbo’s eyes, so she agrees to pay the taxes. she has to limp up to the bars and she spits at schlatt’s feet.

there is disgust on his face, for just a moment, before he breaks into that horrible grin.

“come on, niki,” he says. “is that really how you treat your president?”

“you’re not my president,” she snarls.

he opens the door and gestures for tubbo, who rushes to her side immediately, holding her up. “taxes are due tomorrow,” he says coldly, grin falling. he turns away and motions for quackity to follow him. “get her out of here,” he calls to tubbo.

tubbo takes her to eret’s castle, and they patch her up and let her spend the night and give her enough resources to pay the tax. she marches into the white house and dumps it on schlatt’s desk and leaves without saying a word. tubbo comes into her bakery with a bruise on his cheek and he says that he laughed at the look on schlatt’s face, and it was totally worth it.

she thinks of the look on fundy’s face as schlatt dragged her down to the cell and the look on eret’s face as they opened the castle door and and the look on karl’s face when he came into the bakery earlier that morning and saw the bruises littering her skin and thinks that it was not worth it. it never is.

*\\*/*

loyalty comes and goes faster than anything in this world, it seems. everyone else takes this as a reason to guard their trust carefully, to never let it go. she takes it as a reason to give her trust, because she loves and loves and loves and why should she put a leash on that?

she’s not some fucking damsel in distress, though, which is why the whole situation surrounding the burning of the eiffel tower just kind of pisses her off. she’s being held hostage because of something about henry, and tommy, and she’s mostly just annoyed. she negotiates her way out, she doesn’t fight her way out. antfrost lets her out because she’s helped him in the past, and she hears him lie to sapnap and tell her to run.

she watches from afar as dream and techno both stand in front of tommy protectively and feels a flash of pride, because she knows that these two are the two that will change allegiance faster than anything and yet they are still standing in front of the kid, unified, weapons raised. they agree not to tell wilbur or schlatt, and she forces techno to sit down and let her bandage the cut on his arm and when wilbur asks, she smoothly lies that techno and tommy were training.

later, tommy dramatically recalls the events of the day to tubbo while niki sits off to the side, laughing. they make a grave for henry and the three of them vow to stick together, and she gives in to her motherly instincts and tucks them into bed. techno and wilbur are shouting about something and she knows that someday they are going to blow it up, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? but for now she will give them her trust because she loves, her heart is going to beat out of her chest with how much she loves.

they go to war for each other. her heart beats for them, her heart beats with the drums of war, badum, badum, and she will do anything to keep them safe.

*\\*/*

her heart beats in time with the drums of war, her heart beats in time with the steps of her little brother as he marches up to take his place in front of the people they love. l’manberg has been gone for a long time. manberg has been destroyed. they are on broken land, but their hearts are still beating. tubbo is bruised and bloody and has died more times today than the rest of this stupid war combined. but there is a fire burning in his eyes, and there is a fire burning in her heart, and she is so ender-damn proud of him.

they are going to rebuild their broken land. they are going to repair their broken hearts. they are going to do everything they can to make sure that wilbur and schlatt do not win.

a million years ago, tubbo looked at her after the l’manberg revolution and told her that he was tired, and she wrapped her arms around him and told him that everything would be okay. now, tubbo looks at her and tells her that he’s tired, and she wraps her arms around him and tells him that it’s going to be okay, someday, it may not be now but it will be.

she will do everything- everything- in her power to keep these people safe. she is going to protect them until the end of time, she will protect them with every bone in her body and every breath in her lungs. every beat of her heart beats for them, badum, badum, and as long as she has them to fight for, her heart will not stop beating.

*\\*/*

her heart is beating out of her chest and tubbo is staring at her and he looks terrified, because schlatt has just boxed him in and is crowing about what they do to traitors. she’s screaming louder than she’s ever screamed before, and fundy is gripping her arm, and then techno shoots and everything explodes.

in the chaos, she can see tommy pearl onto the stage, screaming for tubbo, and techno’s shooting into the crowd and fundy is telling her to run.

so she runs, straight for pogtopia, knowing if tubbo respawns he’ll respawn there. she arrives around the same time wilbur emerges from the tunnel, slamming into him, and he hugs her tightly. she allows herself a moment, just a moment, before demanding to know where tubbo is. wilbur leads her to tommy’s room and says that’s where tubbo’s respawn point is, because of course it is, but tubbo is definitely dead and he’s not here, so-

“why didn’t you try to stop him?” she asks as they walk back out, waiting for tommy and techno to return. “techno, i mean.”

“why would i?” wilbur replies, and he looks genuinely surprised, like he couldn’t possibly fathom that maybe his brother blowing up a kid isn’t exactly the ideal scenario. she manages to send him a glare before tommy bursts in, demanding to know where tubbo is, and she hugs him tightly and watches the panic in his eyes as he realizes tubbo isn’t back yet.

and later, once they’re sure tubbo is okay, once techno and wilbur have left and tommy is bloody in the pit, she drags him out and treats his injuries and curses every god she can think of for doing this to a bunch of kids.

*\\*/*

after the election, she takes her rage out on the dough that she beats constantly, pounding it into the table and imagining schlatt’s face, tossing it into a pan and throwing it into the oven. it’s long after the bread is done cooking that she realizes her hands are burned, and it’s long after the bread is done cooling that she realizes she’s crying.

she runs her bloodied hands under cold water and bandages them carefully, wipes the tears from her face and pulls herself together. her boys need her. she will not break. she never does.

*\\*/*

she has a complicated relationship with wilbur and tommy’s brother. technoblade is the middle child, a king among kings, god among gods. he is fearless and fearsome, and they are friends, from before, because wilbur loves her and tommy loves her and if they love her, then techno will love her. she supports him in his famous duel with dream and he picks her up and hugs her after he wins, laughing.

but she does not like technoblade at the moment, and she is not afraid to show it. everyone else here is slightly afraid of him, even his brothers, but she is not. because he is the blood god, sure, but at heart she is not a warrior. she is a healer, a baker, a sister, a comforting presence in the night. she does not pray to the blood god, she does not ask anything of him, other than that he gets out of her way when she does what she needs to do. he is the god of something she does not believe in, and they both know it, so when she asks, he moves.

“revolution waits for no man,” he tells her as she drags an injured wilbur to their makeshift medical area.

“i’m no fucking man,” she snarls back at him. “revolution can wait for me.”

*\\*/*

it doesn’t wait for her. it never does. 

techno stares them down and gives a speech about heroes and power and anarchy and he kills them all, he raises withers and they strike them down, and then he takes off.

wilbur blows it all to hell, because this is his kingdom, damnit, and she makes eye contact with him, both of them bloody, as his father runs him through with a sword.

schlatt is dead and gone, and he’s not coming back, respawned to some other world, banned from ever returning. at least dream gives them that much.

the people of pogtopia, of manberg, gather around several campfires. dream offers them a place to stay with him, and most of them refuse. bad offers the same, and they refuse more kindly. this is their land, this is their kingdom, even blown to hell.

she talks to philza. he hugs her tight and tells her she looks like she could use a parent. it’s a harsh slap in the face, the reminder that she’s barely older than tommy and tubbo, that she’s barely an adult, and she pulls back and smiles at him.

“wilbur’s not coming back for a while, i hope,” is what she says instead, and phil grimaces.

“no,” he says. “not until we’re sure he’s okay again.” not until the fire stops burning in his eyes. not until he picks up a guitar and plays. not until tommy can look at him without flinching back. not until they’re sure techno isn’t going to blow them all up again. not until the world is ready to have him back.

“good,” she says, and she’ll miss him, but she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to look at him without seeing a ghost.

*\\*/*

there is the ghost of something in her eyes as tommy tells her that her fox is dead, as she storms directly up to dream and demands an apology. tommy urges him to give it to her, because she’s pissed and rightfully so, and there’s actually a little bit of fear in tommy’s eyes. dream apologizes and she still isn’t satisfied, because he sounds amused, almost, and she nearly rips that ender-damned mask off his face.

dream takes the mask off and apologizes, and she sees a thousand worlds swirling in his eyes and scoffs, because gods don’t scare her and they’ve never scared her. she thanks him for the apology and gives the fish back, and ignores the blatant shock on both his and tommy’s face.

fundy is more than angry when he finds out. she can’t blame him. and she’s still pissed, so when he tries to convince her to help, she helps. why wouldn’t she? they killed her fucking fox.

it blows a little bit out of proportion, into a full-on war, and when it’s over, she feels good. her heart is beating harder than it ever has, badum, badum, and she prefers peace to fighting, but maybe she likes a little bit of fighting.

*\\*/*

night has fallen and almost everyone is asleep. she is curled into eret’s side, and they are watching the people of new l’manberg as they rest. eret’s crown is gone, their sunglasses are cracked, and they have never looked happier. their cape has been torn down the middle, tubbo curled under one half and fundy under the other.

“he’s gonna need a parent,” eret says, about fundy. she nods. “i think i’ll adopt him.”

“i think he’d like that,” she replies.

several hours later, they are both still awake. eret’s sunglasses are off. “are you doing okay, niki?” they ask, and there are a thousand worlds contained in the glowing gaze of their eyes. her heart is beating so hard she thinks it might overwhelm her.

*\\*/*

wilbur sweeps her into his arms and twirls her around, because she is here now, the war is won and she is here and they are whole. she kisses his cheek and giggles and he kisses the top of her head and laughs, raising his arms to show her this new nation that he’s made, that he wants her to be a part of.

she is kneeling near the place where wilbur died, stabbed through the gut by his father after blowing up his nation. she does not think he’ll be here, she figures he’s already gone, and she’s surprised when she hears him clear his throat behind her.

“why, wil?” she says, and she already knows the answer. she doesn’t turn around. he moves closer.

“i had to,” he replies. “chekov’s gun, and all that.”

“you didn’t have to. you never have to.”

“but i did.”

but he did. now they’re here.

she turns back to him, sees that he’s no longer wearing the uniform of an exiled man. he’s got on his bright yellow sweater, beanie tucked firmly over his hair, and she doesn’t think he’s looked any better, not glowing in the l’manberg uniform, not preaching in a ravine. he kneels down next to her and she does not flinch away.

if schlatt were a smarter man, he would’ve kept wilbur and tommy around, to watch as he ruined their people. if wilbur and tommy had been around to see it, to see what happened to tubbo, to fundy, to her, she thinks that wil would’ve blown it up a lot sooner.

“i’m going to miss you,” she tells him, and she’s telling the truth. she will. his figure is like a ghost next to hers, his fingertips brushing over her hand. “we all are.”

“i blew it up, niki,” he says softly, like she can never forgive him. she doesn’t know what it’ll take to show him that she already has.

“it was never meant to be,” she tells him, and he freezes and looks at her, and she can see that the fire isn’t burning in his eyes anymore. for a moment it is so silent that she can only hear the beat of her heart, badum, badum, and then he wraps her in his arms and she hugs him as tightly as she can.

“i’ll see you soon,” she tells him, and she knows she will.

*\\*/*

eret’s sunglasses are off. there are a thousand worlds contained in their glowing gaze. tubbo is rubbing sleep from his eyes and shifting to rest his head in her lap. fundy is talking to philza, karl and quackity are sifting through debris. the wreckage of a lost city is strewn about them, and the people of new l’manberg are waking up. her heart is beating so hard she thinks it might overwhelm her. it is beating for them, for all of them, it is beating in time with the drums of war and the drums of peace. it is beating so hard she thinks it will overwhelm her.

“are you doing okay, niki?” eret asks her.

“yes,” she says softly. “yes, i think i am.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos/etc keep my heart happy :)


End file.
